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Editorial

12.04.2018

Choosing the right toy

What is important?

Choosing the right toy

Parents want the best for their child’s development. Choosing toys which correspond to the various stages of child development plays a crucial role in this. Through play, children develop in specific areas such as gross motor skills and fine motor skills, perception, concentration, coordination and creativity. For parents, the challenge is finding the right toys for their child: the level of difficulty should correspond to a child’s age, intellectual and fine motor skills as well as his or her interests. Additionally, the toys should encourage children to play independently.

Motivation killer

Nothing is more demotivating than hopelessness: if a game is too difficult, people soon give up. However, something similar happens when a game or task is too easy. Without a reasonable level of challenge, boredom sets in. Boredom is motivation’s worst enemy. A game, puzzle or toy need not be “solved” immediately, but should provide variations and a level of challenge which keeps children engaged.

Not as difficult as it seems

It sounds like choosing the right toys might be a complicated undertaking! In fact, this is by no means the case. Buying a whole arsenal of toys to meet your child’s needs is absolutely unnecessary. Construction games made of wood have consistently been proven to meet the above criteria because of their potential to promote various stages of development. Wooden construction games remain interesting over longer periods of time because they allow for playing on different “levels”.

From simple to complex

Even a one-year-old child is happy with colourful wooden blocks. She grabs them, throws them and watches what happens. The first tower waits to be built, but at first it’s more fun to throw blocks than stack them. Suddenly the child succeeds in stacking one block on top of another, and the building process has begun. Over time, the designs become higher and more refined. The importance of building lies in the playful comprehension of the three-dimensional world and challenges every age group. Because the construction games from Naef can be combined with each other, boredom is impossible, and creativity knows no bounds. Be inspired by the wonderful childlike fantasy worlds on the “community” section of our website!